Education Legislation

When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, its goal was to enhance educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. As Senator Tom Harkin, Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, asserted in an Education Week blog last month, ESEA was meant to help lift children out of poverty by making high-quality education accessible to all.

That is still the goal today. And while the 2001 reauthorization of the law, also known as No Child Left Behind, was well intentioned and helped expose the stark disparities in our education system, leaders from both parties acknowledge that the law needs improvement. Republicans and Democrats in the both the House and the Senate have come up with their own revised versions of ESEA this summer (New America’s blog put out a helpful side by side comparison here [PFD]).

Today, the House will begin debate on the so-called “Student Success Act” (SSA), the version of ESEA reauthorization proposed by John Kline, chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee. Despite the clever title, the bill is a giant step in the wrong direction for students. Read more »

"I graduated high school because of my son," said Amber Anderson this morning, describing how giving birth to a child during her sophomore year of high school motivated her to take her education seriously and get on track to graduate. 

Although the most common social narrative is that when a high school student gets pregnant, her life is over (which people tend to apply to high school moms but not necessarily high school dads, I might add), stories from students like Amber turn the stereotype on its head. As she and other young mothers shared at today's Hill briefing, sponsored by the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, teen parents can and do succeed — especially with a little support. Each young woman agreed that having a child pushed them to finish high school. 

The briefing, held in honor of the 41st anniversary of Title IX, was called "Title IX, Pregnant and Parenting Students, and ESEA: Supporting Young Parents to Achieve Their Educational Goals." It brought together teen parents, advocates, and service providers to explore the promise of Title IX's protections for pregnant and parenting students and to explain the implications of the currently pending Pregnant and Parenting Students Access to Education Act ("PPSAE Act"). Read more »

Yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee debated Senator Harkins’ reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which included an amendment to add the High School Data Transparency Act to the ESEA. The amendment would require high schools to publicly report data on how many girls and boys are playing sports and how much money schools are spending on their teams. Read more »

Yesterday the House Education and Workforce Committee approved a partial reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that is “a 180-degree pivot from the current version of the law.”

Yesterday during mark-up, Representative Foxx (R-NC) summed up the goal of the bill. Foxx said that if she had her druthers she “would get the federal government completely out of the education business.” According to Foxx, the next best thing to getting rid of a federal role in education is the current Republican proposal.

For some history about why the federal government is involved in the education business, we have to go back to the beginning of ESEA.  Until 1965, the federal government didn’t provide education funding to the states. After Brown v. Board of Education, schools across the U.S. were slowly beginning integration efforts and the civil rights movement was shining a spotlight on the huge disparities experienced by people of color in their communities and schools. The original ESEA was aimed at correcting that problem and improving the dismal education prospects of poor children. The bill was primarily a civil rights bill, meant to act as a catalyst for ensuring educational equity by closing achievement gaps between rich and poor, black and white. Read more »

Today the Senate HELP Committee held a “roundtable” on the proposed Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that was voted out of committee two weeks ago. The roundtable came about as a result of some procedural wrangling by Sen. Rand Paul, who continues to call for greater “flexibility” for states. Today’s ESEA takeaway came from Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference, who once and for all addressed the argument that states should be the absolute arbiters of education reform. Henderson explained that the Supreme Court studied this “states’ rights” approach to public education and “found it deeply wanting and, in fact, offensive to the Constitution.” In short – for years “flexibility” meant that states bent backwards to avoid educating the kids who need it most – including children of color, poor kids, and students with disabilities. Read more »

Most people’s eyes glaze over when they hear terms like “disaggregated data.” Wonk, wonk. But advocates should take note. Disaggregated data is crucial to measuring progress for girls and a battleground issue in the school reform debate.

When schools disaggregate data, it means that they keep track of test scores for specific subgroups of students. When you don’t break down the numbers you can’t measure the success of different populations. If you don’t disaggregate – then researchers and journalists (and wonks) can’t tell how kids of color or girls are doing in school because they get lumped in with everybody else. Robert Reich, who is 4’ 10”, once quipped that he and Shaquille O’Neal have an average height of six feet. Disaggregating that data is pretty crucial to evaluating their respective dunking prospects. It’s also a key component in demonstrating student achievement and in making schools accountable for the success of their entire student population. Read more »